


ValeNtine

by ginnyred



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 11:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17766041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnyred/pseuds/ginnyred
Summary: Nico doesn't show up at the school gate on Thursday.





	ValeNtine

**Author's Note:**

> PSA: Sorry for uploading at lol o' clock. I'm not sure what time I'm gonna be home later and this *had* to be posted on the right day. Unless you are in a different timezone, I guess, in which case this is meaningless. Sorry!

Nico doesn't show up at the school gate on Thursday.

It's not unheard of for Nico to be late – Nico is late for most things most of the time, Marti has learnt, school being where he's actually best at time management. Still, “best”, for Nico's standards of punctuality, is not exactly great – but usually he lets Marti know when he doesn't make it in time to meet him before school.

Marti follows Gio and Elia up the stairs and into the classroom while checking his phone. No messages. He considers sending one himself, but Nico doesn't love it when people get overprotective and Marti doesn't want to make him feel smothered.

So he puts his phone away, and tries not to think anything of it.

It's probably nothing anyway. Nico is late and he's forgotten his phone at home. That's probably what this is.

He sits down at his desk and he doesn't actually notice at first.

He takes out his copybook, sees that the translation he did yesterday is still missing the first sentence – he had to skip it, it made no sense – and turns around to ask Gio about it.

Gio is grinning at him, smug.

“What's that under your desk, Prince Charming?”

Marti frowns, turns back, checks his underdesk and, _oh_. He's pretty sure he blushes to the roots of his hair when he sees what's hiding under there.

It's a rose.

A single red rose, its petals luscious and shiny from the water that's been sprinkled on it, a small note in white paper attached to it with a red string.

 _The_ red string.

His face is on fire, his head feels impossibly light, and his heart like it might explode. So it takes him a while to put two and two together.

_Right, it's Valentine's Day._

Marti's never had a reason to celebrate before so he'd forgotten all about it. Not Nico, though.

He smiles to himself, as he attempts to undo the knot without cutting himself on the thorns.

He's pretty sure Nico didn't go with his first instict for this. If he knows him at all, he would have wanted to leave the rose _on_ the desk for everyone to see – and it would have been 80% “I love you and I'm not afraid to show it” and 20% good old-fashioned exhibitionism.

(Marti has been doing his fair share of showing Nico off on instagram so it's not like he doesn't get it at all.)

But Nico has thought of Marti instead, of his love for things quiet and private – things that are _theirs_ , for them to share only with those they trust the most. Nico must have charmed his way into the school early to leave the rose where only _he_ would see it. Well, he and whoever was sitting directly behind him.

Speaking of which.

He disentangles the note from the rose and turns to look behind him. Both Elia and Gio are staring at him expectantly, their elbows on the desks, their chins on their hands. Grinning like the idiots they are.

He rolls his eyes at them, but that only makes them grin more.

“Well? Are you going to read this note or what?!” Elia makes to snatch the piece of paper from Marti's hands and Marti slaps him on the side of the neck for his trouble. “ _Ouch! _Come on, I wanna know what's written on it.”__

__Marti gives him the middle finger and attempts to glare in response to Gio's self-satisfied grin, but he's pretty sure he fails, he's smiling too much._ _

__“Keep dreaming,” he says, as dignified as can, and he opens the small note, careful not to make them see – mostly for the fun of keeping them on their toes._ _

__He reads the note and furrows his brow._ _

_What the-_

__“No, okay, nevermind. I need you. What does this mean?”_ _

__He lays Nico's note open on Gio's desk for them to see. Elia scans it quickly and raises both eyebrows at it._ _

“Well, it's Greek,” he deadpans, and Marti tries to slap him on the neck again, but Elia is faster and he dodges it. “What? Because you know so much more! You should have seen your face while you were reading it!” 

Elia's impression of him is not very flattering but probably accurate. Marti ignores him and turns to Gio. 

“What do you think?” 

“It's definitely not Attic.” Gio rubs his neck, deep in thought. “See here? The eta instead of the epsilon? I think it might be Aeolic.” 

Elia and Marti exchange a perplexed look. 

“... so?” 

“So, it's probably a quote from someone who wrote in that dialect.” Gio shrugs. “I don't have a dictionary here, and I don't know what either of these verbs mean. Maybe try googling it?” 

“I don't have the Greek keyboard on my phone.” 

“Try the transliteration.” 

“My God. Are you two stuck in the Middle Ages?” Elia rolls his eyes and fishes out his phone. “What does it say again?” 

“Wait, wait. Il Peccio is here.” Gio tilts his head towards the door. “You can ask _him_ , he's way better than Google. I mean.” He considers Marti for a moment. “If you feel like sharing this?” 

Marti smiles fondly at Gio. 

_Always so considerate._

“Yeah, it's il Peccio. What could go wrong?” He grins and waits for il Peccio to make his way over to them. He watches him collapse on the chair next to his, still half asleep, and greets him with their usual handshake. “Hey, man.” 

__

__

“Marti.” He yawns and raises a hand to great the boys. “Elì, Gio. What's up?” 

“I need help translating something.” 

Il Peccio raises an eyebrow. 

“My fare is five euro per translation and you know it, Marti.” 

“Nono, it's not homework,” Marti assures him quickly. “It's this note I got from Nico? It's just a few words, but I don't know where it's from or what it says, or anything really. Well, Gio says it's Aeolic Greek. Maybe you can help?” 

He can see il Peccio's expression soften. 

“Oh, well, if it's Nico's note...” 

Marti tries his best not to laugh. He's not sure why il Peccio likes Nico so much. 

Possibly because _everyone_ seems to take a liking to Nico, he's just that kind of guy. But probably because, while definitely not the best at conjugating Greek verbs, Nico is known to be able to carry intense conversations on the subject of _was Odysseus the villain all along_ or, even better, _who were the hottest chicks in ancient Rome._

Marti smiles, slides Nico's note towards il Peccio, and watches his eyes light up in delighted recognition. 

“Ah, my wife,” il Peccio says, clutching a hand to his heart. 

“Who?” 

“Sappho, of course!” Il Peccio scoffs, like it's known information that he's married to a dead Greek poet. “ _Καὶ ποϑήω καὶ μάομαι._ * Your guy has good taste.” 

“Thanks. And could you maybe tell me what it means...?” Marti smiles encouragingly. “Please, Peccio. I get the two 'and's – I mean, obviously – but the verbs are a bit too-” 

“ _And I desire, and I long for,_ ” il Peccio recites in a dreamy tone, and Marti hopes that the heat he can feel spreading on his face is not _too_ visible. “That's it, that's the fragment, nothing else. It's almost better this way, isn't it? What _is_ it that the poet desires? Of course, while she _could_ be talking about-” 

Marti tunes him out. It's not like il Peccio needs an audience to prattle on and on about Greek poetry, anyway. Marti steals a glance in the direction of the boys, a bit hesitantly, and sure enough, Elia was just waiting to meet his eyes to start making crude gestures at him. 

Marti rolls his eyes. 

“Not even if you asked nicely.” 

He meets Gio's eyes and sees that he's smiling, so he smiles back, a bit less self-conscious. 

“He sets the bar so high.” Gio shakes his head. “I feel so incompetent.” 

“You tell _me?!_ I didn't even remember it was Valentine's Day today. So you can imagine-” 

He pauses in the middle of the sentence. He's pretty sure he heard- But no, it can't be. Marti checks the time on his phone: 8.11. 

He was thinking of him, that's why he thought he had heard- But he's in class by now, surely. He must be. Still, he listens harder. 

Heels clicking along the corridor. A brusque manner and a deceptively sweet voice. Scoppini, their Latin and Greek professor, coming into class for first period. And next to her... 

“I don't understand what you're trying to tell me, Fares. Is this about the translation test from last week?” 

Nico smiles, not very convincingly, and leans against the doorframe. He makes a vague gesture with his hand, and Marti hides a grin in his sleeve. 

_He's improvising._

She probably caught him in the corridor while he was trying to sneak into IVB. 

“Yes? _Yes!_ That one. Precisely. I'm worried I might have made a mess with the, uh... genitive absolute?” 

“And what do you want me to do about it?” 

“I thought maybe you could tell me _if_ I made a mess with the genitive absolute?” He attemps a charming smile. “Please, prof, I'm very worried about this test, you see, and-” 

“Well, when I'm giving the test back in...” Scoppini makes a show of checking the time. “Exactly three hours, you'll know if you 'made a mess'. Go now, Fares. I have a class to teach and you have one to attend.” 

She leaves him at the door and walks to her desk. Nico takes a couple of steps back into the corridor to make sure he's out of her sight and looks up to meet Marti's eyes. 

__He grins, and Marti grins back._ _

__“Did you find it?” he mouths at him, and Marti nods excitedly._ _

__“Did you like it?”_ _

__Marti nods again. He steals a glance in Scoppini's direction, but she's busy checking who's absent with the girls in the first row, so he kisses the tips of his own fingers while looking straight at Nico. He doesn't dare blow him a kiss, but this is close enough._ _

__“Happy Valentine's Day.” Nico gives him his biggest, brightest smile. “I love you.”_ _

__They've said it before. So it's not like it's new, or that he didn't know, or anything like that. It still makes him stupidly giddy, though._ _

__“I love you too,” Marti mouths back, grinning._ _

__They're left there staring at each other, smiling so big it hurts – almost a contest of who's more in love, one where no winner is ever declared – and completely forgetting where they are or what they are supposed to be doing._ _

__Of course that can't last for very long._ _

__“Rametta!” Marti jumps when Scoppini calls his name. “If you don't mind? Contenti, close the door, please.”_ _

__He furrows his brow._ _

__“If I don't mind what?”_ _

__He hears Gio and Elia snicker behind his back, and Scoppini rolls her eyes at him._ _

__“Thursday morning. Greek class. Homework correction. Are you with us? Read and translate the first sentence - if it's not too much trouble, of course.”_ _

_Oh. Right._

__The first sentence. Of the translation he did for homework._ _

__The one he skipped 'cause it didn't make sense._ _

_Great._

__“Yeah. About that...” he starts hesitantly, but then il Peccio slides his copybook across his desk towards him, so he can read from there._ _

__“Don't get used to it,” he whispers, and Marti smiles gratefully back at him._ _

__Homework correction goes alright._ _

__He feels his phone buzz with a new message in his pocket, but he doesn't dare look at it just yet._ _

__When they're done and Scoppini starts reading from Sophocles, though – when he can see her eyes are on the page and she's not likely to look up anytime soon – he checks. He smiles when he sees it's from Nico._ _

__**Nico, 8.17** _ _

_was she mad? sorry for distracting you :/_

__He starts typing not to worry, but then his eyes catch Nico's note – still lying there on his desk, red string and all, the most loving of reminders._ _

_“And I desire, and I long for.”_

__He grins and deletes everything he's written. He starts again:_ _

__

_you're always distracting me_

He doesn't have to wait much for Nico's reply.

**Nico, 8.32**

_your attempt at flirting has been duly noted, love_

_5+ for the effort_

Marti huffs a silent laugh. He's such a jerk. But he'll show him.

_are you free this afternoon?_

_i'm gonna make you eat your words, *love*_

He can imagine Nico's pleased grin as if he were standing right there in front of him.

**Nico, 8.34**

_asfgdjskladf_

_< 3_

**Author's Note:**

> * Kài pothèo, kài màomai (if you were curious).
> 
> <3


End file.
